Wednesday 1th April

We picked up a hire car for the journey to Brisbane. We decided after looking on the internet that we would drive, it was seventeen hundred kilometres and we aimed to get to Brisbane by Friday. We set off at nine thirty, and made our way down to Arlie Beach, calling off on a number of places on the way. For most of the journey, there was mile upon mile of sugar cane fields, and Banana trees, they have a railway system around these area used to collect the harvest as it covers such a large area. There are also many notices about moving crops from one place to another, they are very strict about cross contamination.

We arrived at Arlie about seven o'clock in the evening. This leg of the journey was about five hundred kilometres. We managed to find accommodation even though it was getting late. After sorting out the room we went out for food and a walk along the beach front. We came across sign on the beach front telling you what to do if stunk by jelly fish, there were many different types some very nasty, Robin decided he wouldn't bother going for a swim in the morning!!

Thursday 2nd April

After breakfast we went for a good walk along the front. There were lots of little boats out at sea in the bay, it was very picturesque. As we walked along the front several parrakeet's appeared out of the trees squawking it was nice to see them flying around free and not in a cage.

We set off again for the second leg of the journey. We covered a lot of ground getting to over two thirds of the way to Brisbane. There were not may views of the coast, but landscape again was fascinating. We passed through lots of national park areas. Finally after driving until quite late we found a motel in a small town of for the night. We had covered about fourteen hundred kilometres by the end of the day.

Friday 3rd April

We had about three hundred kilometres left to cover, we were going to travel down the coast road as there are some lovely beaches but unfortunately there had been flash floods the day before and many people had had to be rescued in their cars so we thought it best not to take the hire car that route, which was a shame.

Next call was Australia Zoo. Having seen it so many times on TV we felt we would regret not going. Its is an area called Beerwah about an hour north of Brisbane. The zoo was surprisingly small, but had all of the native Australian animals which we had been looking for in the wild on the way down but not seen. The Kangaroos were in an open area which you could walk through and feed, and the Koalas were very cute! And of course the crocodiles which the zoo is well known for, thanks to Steve Irwin. We stayed in the zoo until closing time at five o'clock.

We then set off again for Brisbane to find cousin Scott and Lisa and their two sons Jacob and Harry, who had very kindly offered to put us up for the weekend. We finally arrived at their house at about eight o'clock, it was lovely to see them again and we sat and had a few beers and chatted until early hours. We also got to meet the nightly visitors, two Possums who came into the garden looking for food. The Possums were very cute.

Saturday 4th April

We went to the local village and had breakfast at the coffee club, then after dropping the hire car back to the airport we went in to the city. Brisbane is a very clean modern city with lots of bars and coffee shops. We walked to the south of the river to the history museum, it was a lovely museum with a lot of Aboriginal history, which was quite sad but interesting to read about. Later we went back in to the shopping mall to have a look around.

In the evening Scott and Lisa took us to a great steak restaurant where you could chose from lots of different cuts of steak, it had been a long time since we had had a steak meal like that and it was well worth waiting for, it was the most we had eaten in ages.

Sunday 5th April

We went out for breakfast into the city, there was a market going on and live music, it really nice sat listening to guitar music, it had a very continental feel to it. We then made our way down to the river and walked along the bank. We went over a walkway made from concrete which floats on the river it was a very strange feeling as it bobbed up and down. The river was a very well used piece of water way, lots of boats, water ferry's, jets skis and yachts going up and down. We walked for a while then we got on a sea cat (water taxi) which took us down the river towards the estuary and then back into the city. There were some beautiful houses lining the rivers edge. When we arrived back in the city we walked along the south bank where there was a great open air lido free for people to use, and there were lots of people using it, the Australians seem to be very good at providing wonderful facilities like this and people make good use of them.

We went up mount Coot-tha to look out over the city, there were great views from the top, we sat and ordered drinks and whilst waiting the heavens opened. We could see the rain coming towards us over the city, it soon passed though.

Later we went back to the house for a BBQ, where we tried Morton Bay bugs, which look quite ugly but taste wonderful (a cross between prawns and lobster) and some kangaroo meat which was red like beef but quite sweet.